Hello my friends...
I'm not a big fan of Oprah's, but she had been running previews for her show today all weekend, so I tuned in. The topic: child pornography and online predators. I was horrified by what she reported. Most of you know that I'm increasingly investing myself as an advocate for abused kids, and I thought I had seen and heard some pretty awful stuff. But what I saw today was disturbing and heart-wrenching. Kids, toddlers, even infants being sexually molested and raped while photographed or videotaped in the act. The footage gets traded or sold online.
This is happening to shocking numbers of children and the predators (who oftentimes are the children's own parents) are growing at a rate so fast that our judicial system cannot keep up with it. I've spoken with the staff at Chaucies Place (the child advocacy center for Hamilton County), where I learned that sexual abuse is an ever-increasing problem locally. So much so, that the same type of undercover Internet investigations unit that was made popular from TV's "To Catch a Predator" is now operating in Hamilton County--with a particular focus on Fishers.
I hope that each of you will do what you can to reach out to advocate for these kids. They need our prayers, and they need us to act on their behalf. There is also legislation that can be passed that will funnel a lot more funding toward those who are trying to bring the predators to justice. That was actually the point of Oprah's show today. I hope that you'll go to the following link to learn more: http://www.oprah.com/dated/oprahshow/oprahshow_20080911_predators
Please go here to learn what you can do to encourage our Senators to pass the necessary legislation: http://www.oprah.com/article/oprahshow/20080911_tows_predators
God...please break our hearts for these kids. Send Your Spirit to comfort and heal them. And send us to act in any and every way that You call us to partner with You to bring protection and hope and love to them. In Jesus' name we pray.
Thanks everybody. Blessings...
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4 comments:
I sent letters off to both of our senators. Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
I also sent emails to both our Senators. I saw this program as well and it was deeply disturbing. I hope we can all band together and make a difference!
You can also fight global human trafficking of young girls forced into brothels at ages as young as 7 years old by getting involved with the International Justice Mission. www.ijm.org, a christ based non profit human rights organization. There are over 5 million young girls (ages 6-16) being sold/traded in the sex slave industry in the world right now. I will be giving a concert at NVCL in December benefitting this very important cause. IJM is beginning the fight here at home as well with Child Pornography. Thanks, Ryan, for bringing another important issue to our attention.
We sent notes to our Senators too. Thanks for the email and post. [Ah]
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